REFLECTOR: Blue Mountain and GRT
Michael Watson
mikewatsspg at gmail.com
Tue May 5 21:05:17 CDT 2009
Sorry, I meant
Why, the new FRANKLIN fuel injected dual electronic ignition engine of
course.
On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Michael Watson <mikewatsspg at gmail.com>wrote:
> Why, the new fuel injected dual electronic ignition engine of course.
>
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Brooke Wolf <bwolf1 at tds.net> wrote:
>
>> Ok Andy and Michael. You are making it easy. For me it will be
>> Aerocomposite Prop and GRT avionics. Now about that engine!!?
>> Brooke
>>
>>
>> On May 5, 2009, at 3:12 PM, reflector-request at tvbf.org wrote:
>>
>>
>> *From: *Michael Watson <mikewatsspg at gmail.com>
>> *Date: *May 5, 2009 2:26:22 PM EDT
>> *To: *Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list <reflector at tvbf.org>
>> *Subject: **Re: REFLECTOR: Blue Mountain Avionics*
>> *Reply-To: *Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list <
>> reflector at tvbf.org>
>>
>>
>> GRT HX is the way to go. These guys are innovative and have one of the
>> best
>> support system in the industry. They just added Flight Director and AHRS
>> driven
>> Angle-of Attack to their synthetic vision HITS unit and they are
>> relatively cheap.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Andy Millin <amillin at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
>>
>>> Warning: This is another one of my long winded posts … you may want to
>>> ignore it now!
>>>
>>>
>>> Evaluating a product can be a difficult subject to broach on the
>>> Reflector. On one hand, if you have done the research, the community can
>>> benefit. On the other, it is easy to come off as a shill. I’m not selling
>>> anything!!!
>>>
>>>
>>> I remember when Blue Mountain debuted at Oshkosh. They did not have a
>>> working, deliverable unit. They had a demo unit and were taking deposits
>>> and orders. They had the largest display I had seen available in glass. It
>>> looked great. I don’t normally like it when products are described as
>>> “sexy”, but the Blue Mountain stuff was sexy.
>>>
>>>
>>> At the time I think Chelton was advertising that they had just dropped
>>> the cost of a dual display system from $50,000 to something like $36,000
>>> with the tag line “now cost isn’t a factor!”. Well hell, buy three!!! If
>>> BM was selling this big, beautiful unit for $12-14K, the price was very
>>> attractive.
>>>
>>>
>>> Many people recount that Greg Richter is one heck of a salesman. He
>>> knows how to make things look good. He has always had highly polished
>>> marketing material. He knows how to sell the “sizzle”.
>>>
>>>
>>> My friends Jim and Heather Butcher took the plunge and put down a
>>> deposit. BM said the $12K was a show price. I think the units went from
>>> $12K to $14K, but I don’t know the exact numbers.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jim and Heather finished their Europa. They installed the BM EFIS and
>>> EIS. From the beginning Jim had problems. Features that were promised were
>>> not in the unit. Other features technically would work, but Jim had to do
>>> all the research. They have a Rotax. Greg said that it would work well.
>>> It turns out they were the first to install BM with a Rotax. There was
>>> nothing to copy from and BM didn’t know Rotax at all. Support was minimal.
>>> It was impossible at times to tell if the unit was malfunctioning or just
>>> not calibrated correctly. Jim is very savvy and very tenacious. He dug
>>> in. In the process he found several bugs in the software. He reported them
>>> to BM. All the while getting more frustrated. They were supposed to be
>>> flying not debugging a very expensive piece of equipment.
>>>
>>>
>>> When Jim had most of the EIS working they went flying. The whole
>>> scenario came back for the EFIS. I believe the unit was pulled three times
>>> and sent back for update or modification. Jim is a very smart guy and he
>>> just was not getting it to work. During his test program, the ELT came up
>>> on his card. He had yet to turn it on during flight. He did so. When he
>>> keyed the mic on the radio, the ELT went off. How is that related to the
>>> EFIS???? Jim started working the problem. He found that with the EFIS
>>> off, the problem never happened. With the EFIS on, it always happened. He
>>> never researched it further. He had been fixing bugs for the better part of
>>> two years and had just had enough; the last straw. The unit was pulled.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jim called BM and asked if an upgrade to the newer box might solve the
>>> problems. BM said it might, but that they would only give him pennies on
>>> the dollar for his current unit. That might well have been their last
>>> contact with the company.
>>>
>>>
>>> They replaced it with GRT. Jim is not troubleshooting problems. It
>>> works. They are happy. They are flying.
>>>
>>>
>>> Over the years I have heard many stories about BM. It is hard to be in
>>> the Experimental Community and not know at least one person that bought BM,
>>> tried to make it work, and then pulled the thing out and replaced it.
>>>
>>>
>>> I have good friends that spent a great deal of money and got nothing but
>>> headache and heartache. These are my friends and I have always wished them
>>> well. I wanted this to work for them.
>>>
>>>
>>> It is also hard at times to hold your tongue when you hear someone say
>>> they want to buy BM. I wince. I hate badmouthing anyone. I want to
>>> balance that against someone getting burned because I didn’t have the guts
>>> to speak up…
>>>
>>>
>>> I’m posting this in the genuine hope that it might be of use to someone
>>> in the decision process. I have nothing against Greg Richter. I don’t own
>>> his products. I think competition is good and the more options we have, the
>>> better. Let me qualify that, the more GOOD options we have, the better.
>>>
>>>
>>> Like anything else, please*10^10, do your research. (field performance,
>>> support, upgrade policy, etc…)
>>>
>>>
>>> In the interest of disclosure: My good friend Carlos works for Grand
>>> Rapids Technologies. My research has led me to believe I want their
>>> equipment in my plane. I don’t work for GRT. I have heard very good things
>>> about Dynon as well.
>>>
>>>
>>> FWIW,
>>>
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>>
>>> =====================================
>>>
>>>
>>> Andy Millin
>>>
>>> amillin at sbcglobal.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Mike W.
> 1997 Velocity Elite RG
> Franklin /IVO Electric CS
> Dual GRT EFIS Synthetic Vision
>
--
Mike W.
1997 Velocity Elite RG
Franklin /IVO Electric CS
Dual GRT EFIS Synthetic Vision
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